All language subtitles for Worlds.Greatest.Warships.S01E02.The.Mighty.Dreadnought.Monster.Warship.of.WWI.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-ALLEYESONME_track3_[eng]

Warships
are the ultimate symbol

of a nation's military might.

These things are monstrous
wonders of technology.

Enormous vessels,
crewed by thousands,

bristling with massive
guns and powerful aircraft,

they can deliver terrifying destruction

and turn the tide of history.

The ship was built to win the war.

There was no other reason.

From the
beginning of the 20th century

to the present day,

these are the stories of classic warships.

From dreadnoughts to Bismarck,

to Japan's monster sea warrior Yamato,

the American super ships, Wisconsin,

Lexington, and Enterprise,

to today's cutting edge
Royal Navy carriers,

these are the world's greatest warships.

Halfway through World War
I, over 200 warships clashed

in the era's defining naval battle,

the Battle of Jutland.

Over 25 ships and thousands of
men were sent to the bottom.

The loss was a shock, but
there was also success.

On both sides a new type of ship

had dished out massive damage
and taken many huge hits,

yet remained afloat, able to
return to base for repair.

These were the war machines

that sparked the arms race
that changed the world.

It was a menacing,
dangerous-looking ship,

and everybody wanted one.

These were the dreadnoughts,

but they only came
about because of a book.

In 1890, an American naval officer

called Alfred Thayer
Mahan published a detailed

study of British naval strategy.

Mahan's book on "The Influence
of Sea power on History"

was a painstaking analysis, in effect,

of how Britain came to
be so big in the world.

Andrew Gordon
is a naval historian.

Mahan's book explained something

nobody had worried their heads about.

How could it happen that
this little rainy country

off the northwest of Europe
had this huge global presence?

And the answer, of course, was sea power.

It had been 90 years

since Nelson's decisive
victory at Trafalgar

and Britain was the most
powerful nation in the world.

Its sea lanes policed by a Royal Navy

that dwarfed its rivals,
rivals who'd had enough

of playing second fiddle.

Britain was looked at by other nations

with a mixture of envy and admiration,

especially on the German side.

Jann Witt teaches

early 20th century German history.

Germany was fully industrialized

and was a blooming economy.

Nevertheless, at that
point of time in military

and strategic terms, it was
still a Continental power.

Germany's ambitious emperor

Kaiser Wilhelm II was a
big fan of Mahan's book.

The main argument of Mahan was

if you want to be a world power,
you'll need a strong navy.

So this was the ideology
the Kaiser embraced

to make Germany by this a world power.

Germany
quickly started to build

a powerful new fleet to rival a Royal Navy

that was becoming increasingly bloated.

On paper, the fleet is unquestionably

the mightiest navy in the
world, but if you look closely,

there were a vast number of ships

that were no longer fit for purpose.

Andrew Choong
is one of the curators

at the Royal Museums in Greenwich.

The problem was that in
any kind of shooting war,

while they were perfectly
good for imperial policing,

they would struggle to survive
against the more modern ships

that were being deployed
by smaller navies.

The German
buildup focused British minds

on the need to modernize.

And in 1904, the Royal Navy
appointed a radical new leader.

The very colorful Admiral Jackie Fisher

becomes the First Sea Lord.

And effectively the Royal Navy is his.

Within certain limits, he
can stamp his style on it,

do what he wants with it,

and he already has in
his mind this concept

of the super battleship of the future.

This ship embodies two
very important elements.

One is very, very high speed.

Fisher was all about
having tactical superiority

by being able to run rings
around the opposition.

The other is superior firepower,
vastly superior firepower.

Fisher's problem
was that his concept

was based on theories
rather than experience.

He needed facts to back up his ideas.

What Jackie Fisher needed was a war.

Since 1903, Japan and
Russia had been at war

on land and sea over who controlled

large parts of Southeast Asia.

The defining moment came in 1905

with a naval battle in
the Straits of Tsushima.

The interesting thing about Tsushima

is it's the first battle to
come for an awfully long time.

Nick Hewitt
is head of exhibitions

at the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

You have to go back
nearly 100 years really

to find the last big fleet
action that anybody takes.

And you notice, if you look
at the Napoleonic Wars,

battles fought between
ships powered by sail power,

made of wood firing
muzzle-loading cannons.

Fast forward a 100 years and
you've got steel battleships

with rifled guns in revolving turrets,

powered by steam engines.

And nobody has tried this technology out.

It's never really been
used in action before.

Now this was a very,
very mismatched conflict.

Russia was an established European power,

and although Japan had modernized
to an incredible degree

in the last few decades,
no one really thought

that an Asian upstart
would be able to challenge

this European giant.

The experts were wrong.

Japan's navy had fast, modern ships,

equipped with powerful 12 inch guns

and Royal Navy-trained crews.

Russia's was dated and Ill-prepared.

During the battle,

the Japanese ships
outmaneuvered the Russians.

Their guns were more accurate

and effective at a greater range

The results were devastating.

It was a total wipe
out of the Russian fleet.

49 out of 52 Russian ships

were sunk or captured.

This decisive victory won Japan the war.

Tsushima is an earthquake.

It's an absolute culture
shock to the great powers.

The upstart has won
and the upstart has won

because they possess the
superior battle fleet.

The message was
modernize, modernize or die.

As the 20th century began,

Britain's status as the
world's greatest sea power

was under threat.

The navy's fleet was becoming dated.

And Germany was building up

an evermore ominous
collection of warships.

But new naval supremo Jackie
Fisher believed he had an idea

that would keep Britain's
command of the seas intact.

Now, Japan's decisive victory

at the Battle of Tsushima
had delivered proof

that his concept for a
world-beating warship

was on the right track.

He wanted a ship with
big punch, that was fast,

and that could keep out of
the range of enemy gunfire.

And that ship was called Dreadnought.

Jackie Fisher planned to create

the world's first al-big-gun battleship.

An unprecedented 10 12
inch guns in five turrets

would deliver accurate and
deadly fire over a huge range.

The latest engines would give
smoother, more reliable power,

allowing her to outpace her
rivals and dictate the battle.

A belt of face-hardened
armor would protect

her main control rooms,
turrets, and magazines,

completing the formidable package

that would make HMS Dreadnought

the most powerful warship ever built.

As if that wasn't enough,

Fisher wanted the launch of his new ship

to take his rivals by surprise.

Fisher had set a target
of wanting the ship

completed within a year,
which was unheard of.

Battleships were normally completed

within two to three years
from the laying of the keel.

So this was a supreme
effort and he wanted this

to be done quietly
because he wanted the ship

to have all the more impact
when it was finally launched.

So Dreadnought is built
in less than a year.

She's in part built in less than a year

because Fisher takes them clever tricks.

He prefabricates steel and has
it piled upon the dock side.

He orders as many parts
in advance as he can

and only then presses the go
button on building the ship.

One of the great problems
when you're building a ship

in this period is that
the guns and the turrets

take almost longer to
manufacture than the ship itself.

Luckily for Fisher,

two large battleships
were being constructed

for the Royal Navy at the
same time as Dreadnought.

And their turrets and the gun calibers

were exactly what he wanted.

So these four turrets were
reallocated to Dreadnought,

which meant that she could
be completed on schedule.

The unveiling of
Fisher's vision for a new era

of British naval
supremacy arrived in 1906,

when King Edward VII
launched HMS Dreadnought

at Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.

Predictably, it was her all-big-gun layout

that impressed witnesses the most.

A ship, apparently invincible,

and capable of one
discharge from her guns,

of throwing with unparalleled force,

twice as much metal as any
foreign man of war now afloat,

and three times as much as most.

Neither Dreadnought
or any other battleship

of her day still exist, except one.

Commissioned in 1914,

USS Texas stands alone
as a unique testament

to First World War battleship technology.

With her all-big-gun
layout still fully intact,

she's able to conjure a
sense of what operating

her fearsome artillery was like.

Andy Smith is the ship's manager.

So we're down in the belly of the ship,

about six stories down
from the top of the turret.

This whole mechanism is
attached to that turret

and would move with the turret.

And we're in the magazine,

so this is where the shells are stored.

So ultimately the shells
are stored in here.

They're attached to this monorail system,

brought through here.

They hooked up to this
hoist and then attached.

And when it's ready to go
up, boom, ring this bell.

And then they're cranked up

all the way to that turret eventually.

So we're inside turret number one.

These are the rifles.

This is the whole reason
why the battleship's float,

to have these rifles available.

So ultimately you'd have a
round, about 1,500 pounds,

coming all the way from the
very bottom of the ship.

Comes up this elevator, right there,

rolls over, then it gets rammed in here.

And then you got four more bags,

four bags of powder that come up,

get put in behind that, rammed in.

They strap themselves in,

they go ahead with this talking
tube, "Guns ready to fire".

They're strapped up against the wall here,

out of the way of this breach, waiting.

They pull the trigger.

This shell traveling up to 12
miles, and then when it hits,

creating a hole the size
of a basketball court.

Of course, the awesome power

of all those 14 inch shells
was only an advantage

if they hit their targets.

Again, Fisher had thought this through.

The idea to use a single
caliber main armament

solved a problem that
had long prevented guns

from being used accurately at long range.

Before Dreadnought, ships
generally fired an array

of different calibers at the same target,

which meant gunnery officers

often struggled to gauge ranges.

You can't correct if you
have three different calibers

of guns banging away independently

because nobody knows whose
shell splash is whose.

And that's what was keeping
the ranges in close.

To increase the effective range

of its massive guns, HMS
Dreadnought was the first ship

with a purpose-built
fire control platform.

This area is the lookout
and more importantly

the fire control position.

So the gunnery officer
would be based up here,

directing the fire of the entire
main armament of the ship.

This was a very, very new
system for the Royal Navy.

They were still evolving
this when Dreadnought

was built and commissioned.

By organizing the guns
to fire with one man,

the gunnery officer, in the spotting top

who is observing the fall of shot

and is pressing the button to fire salvos.

And so get a group of
shells landing together

and you can tell, if you
are the gunnery officer

in the foretop, if the
shells are landing short

or over and you can correct.

To ram home their advantage,

these powerful and now accurate guns

needed to be brought to bear
on their targets quickly

and from the best angles.

This meant Dreadnought needed to be faster

than all of her rivals.

Until now all large warships

had used huge triple
expansion steam engines

with massive pistons driving crankshafts.

But pushing these hard
caused damaging vibrations.

Once again, Jackie Fisher
opted for the cutting-edge

in technology, steam turbine engines.

Putting turbines into a
large untested battleship

was a very, very brave move.

The technology had been proven

but not in a ship of this scale.

Turbines are quieter, they're faster,

they're more efficient, they
are less prone to breakdowns.

Dreadnought could be
run at her maximum speed

of almost 20 knots for sustained periods.

And what this meant in practice

was that she could outrun any
pre-dreadnought in existence.

To tie together the advantages

of high speed and devastating firepower,

HMS Dreadnought was also equipped

with the very latest technology
in electrical power systems,

similar to ones still on USS Texas today.

So this is your power
distribution for the whole ship.

This is as much a cutting-edge
technology as those big guns,

as that big armor we have,
as those turbine engines

that are pushing these dreadnoughts.

This is the cutting-edge.

If you think about the average
sailor that came aboard,

he probably didn't have
electricity in his home

and now he's coming aboard
and everything's lit

with fans and blowers.

I mean, people would die in
these ships, they'd get so hot.

You need air movement, you need lights.

All of those little things
that make it all work,

those hoists to get the the shells up

to the top of the turret,
they're running off electricity.

Where's that electricity coming from?

It's coming from in here.

And so all of these switches
are basically turning off

and on power to various parts of the ship

and redirecting it where needed.

You imagine if a part of the ship

is underwater, is being
flooded because it was hit,

you don't want electricity
running through that.

So they would shut the power
down to that part of the ship,

redirect it somewhere else.

So you're dealing with high, high voltage.

There's a lot of power
coursing through here.

And it wouldn't come as a surprise

if when you did this there'd
be a little pushback.

These guys down here were probably some

of the bravest guys on board the ship.

This is not for the
faint of heart for sure.

The really
big shock had been caused

by HMS Dreadnought herself.

No ship had ever combined size, speed,

power, and armor in
such a fearsome machine.

Dreadnought, something
that fears nothing.

It can project power,
it can secure sea lanes,

it can defend a coast,
it can attack a coast.

It can dominate the seas.

HMS Dreadnought is a real game changer.

The old vessels, the old pre-dreadnought,

as they're called now,
battleships, are simply outclassed.

The creation of HMS Dreadnought

was a great triumph for Fisher,

but he also had created
an enormous problem

for himself and for the Royal Navy.

It made every other battleship
in the world obsolete,

including all of Britain's.

Fisher is essentially
pressing the reset button

on the global arms race.

The German admiralty
simply saw itself forced

to build vessels like HMS Dreadnought.

It was an arms race like
we saw post-World War II

between the Soviet Union and U.S...

In the '50s it was nukes, in
the teens, it was dreadnoughts.

The U.S., France, and Japan

all set about making their
versions of HMS Dreadnought.

But it was Germany's response
that worried the Royal Navy.

It took the Germans a couple of years,

but they succeeded in quickly designing

and launching their own dreadnoughts.

Author Mark Stille specializes

in the battleships of the 20th century.

The German ships were a bit different

than the British designs
because they emphasized

protection at the expense of fire power.

So they were not as heavily armed

as most British ships were of the day.

By 1911, the Germans
are producing designs

that match Britain in quality.

And in the years after that, if anything,

some of their designs are
beginning to pull ahead.

By 1914, Germany
had truly come of age

as a warship builder.

Perhaps the best example was
the Konig-class battleship.

Four were built, including
SMS Konig herself.

So we are looking here
at a magnificent plan

of the Konig-class.

It's very well designed
in regard of protection.

So you see here a heavy deck armor.

You see here a massive side armor.

You see here the double bottom.

In case of a mine hit,
there's a great chance

that the vessel will
only be lightly damaged.

And you see a huge number of bulkheads,

which divides the vessel
in watertight compartments.

You see here also the
number of guns listed.

10 3.5 or 12 inch main
guns in five turrets.

14 15 centimeter guns.

Also 10 8.8 centimeter guns
for fighting off torpedo boats.

They were quick firing or
quick loading guns, of course.

Five torpedo tubes underwater,

one in the bow and four
on the broad sides.

So yeah, she was really a vessel
to reckoned with in battle.

As Germany's navy grew,

the likelihood of war loomed ever larger.

Formidable new ships such
as Konig were intended

to present an unacceptable
risk to Britain's interests.

The idea was it should
be powerful enough

to cause the Royal Navy
sufficient casualties,

that even if the German fleet lost

Britain's possessions would
be vulnerable to other powers.

Therefore, the Royal Navy
would not want to challenge

the German fleet for that reason.

It would stop Britain
declaring war on Germany.

Well, it didn't work, did it?

In 1906, HMS
Dreadnought had fired

the starting pistol on the
all-big-gun battleship arms race.

Britain, France, the United
States, Russia, Japan,

and Germany had all battled
fiercely to build the biggest,

baddest gunship the world had ever seen.

By 1914, so fast was the pace of change

that the original HMS Dreadnought

was already past her sell by date.

I always find it quite amusing

that we look at
technological development now

and we get excited if there's
a new smartphone comes out.

But actually in that eight year period,

these things changed beyond recognition,

to the point where HMS Dreadnought

is obsolete by the start
of the First World War.

HMS Dreadnought
may have been relegated

to minor fleet duties, but
so indelible was her legacy

that all big battleships
became known as dreadnoughts.

With excellent dreadnoughts like the Konig

Germany had caught up
with Britain in quality,

but the one thing they were never able

to match was quantity.

Britain has the advantage
if you compare, for example,

with Germany, Germany
is also trying to build

the world's largest army at the same time,

and they simply cannot
keep up with the British

who are really 100%
focused on naval building.

They're building these things almost

at the rate of a class of
four every year gets ordered

and laid down and they're
getting progressively

bigger and bigger.

In Britain, the Navy
was the senior service.

While in Germany, although
she had this ambition

to become a world power,
still was a Continental power.

So she needed a strong army.

And so the bulk of the
money spend for military

was spent for the army.

And this also kind of hindered, of course,

a massive buildup of the fleet.

In August, 1914,
that powerful German army

invaded Belgium, a British
ally, triggering World War I.

When war breaks out and the arms race

is brought to a sudden halt,

the British have 22
dreadnoughts in commission.

The German Navy is
somewhat behind with 13.

To add to this, the British
have nine battle cruisers

in commission to Germany's four.

So it looks like a substantial lead

in the Royal Navy's favor at
the beginning of World War I.

From day one of the war,

the sheer number of their
ships meant the Royal Navy

had the upper hand on
Germany's High Seas Fleet.

The speed of modern warships meant

that the main Grand Fleet
could lie secure in Scapa Flow,

its new base in Scotland.

With smaller fleets based in Rosyth,

Harwich, and on the South Coast,

Britain now had a very effective blockade

on Germany's small section
of the North Sea coast.

The proud new ships of the
Kaiser's fleet struggled

to operate beyond their own local waters.

It's probably fair to
say that at the start

of the First World War,

the German High Seas Fleet
did not know what to do.

Their planning had been based on an idea

that the Royal Navy would
follow its traditional

aggressive approach and come stampeding

into the Southern North
Sea to take them on

and annihilate them in
a sort of Trafalgar II.

Both sides are waiting for
this apocalyptic confrontation

between the two fleets.

And much to everyone's
frustration, this doesn't happen.

The British didn't come,

so there was no decisive
battle in the North Sea

as the Germans had expected.

So they had to build up, from scratch,

a new strategic approach.

So to break the deadlock,

the Germans formulate a
plan whereby they will try

and entice a portion of the
Grand Fleet out to engage them

and hopefully trap and
sink this detached portion

with the entirety of the
High Seas Fleet strength.

Once they have done this to
the Royal Navy enough times,

they'll then be able to meet
it on equal or superior terms

and win a decisive victory.

On May 31st, 1916,
that exact plan was underway

as bold new German
commander Admiral Scheer,

prepared to ambush a small
fleet of Royal Navy warships.

His scouting fleet engaged

a British battle cruiser squadron.

Unlike dreadnought battleships,

battle cruisers were lightly
armored for greater speed.

Initially, the German
effort goes according to plan,

that the two battle cruiser
forces meet and catastrophically

two British battle
cruisers blow up and sink.

This is mainly because of the
way in which they're storing

and using ammunition onboard the ships.

On the two battle cruisers

were 2,385 sailors, only 20 survived.

It was round one to Admiral Scheer.

Scheer now chased the small British fleet

towards the coast of Jutland,

where the rest of his High
Seas Fleet lay in wait,

ready to pounce.

What he didn't know was
that also lying in wait

was the entire British Grand Fleet.

In command was Admiral
Jellicoe aboard his flagship

HMS Iron Duke, a bang
up to date battleship

so advanced from the
original HMS Dreadnought

that she was known as a super dreadnought.

Andrew Choong has an original

as completed plan of this powerful vessel.

If I lay these plans of HMS Iron Duke

over the ones of HMS Dreadnought,

it allows us to see the huge
changes that have taken place.

This ship was built a mere seven

or eight years after Dreadnought.

General improvements resulted
in ships that were larger,

faster, and much more powerful.

This ship is a quantum leap
above its near ancestor

and the differences
necessitated a much larger hull

to accommodate all the improvements.

So again, the most noticeable
thing about this ship

is the primary armament,

the powerful main battery
of 13.5 inch guns,

larger than those mounted
aboard Dreadnought.

But most importantly gone
are the wing turrets,

which we saw in Dreadnought.

Everything is on a center-line,

which means that when this
ship engages an enemy vessel,

she can bring her entire armament to bear.

The key
improvements to Iron Duke

were to her firepower.

Eight of her 13.5 inch guns

were now set in super firing pairs,

meaning four barrels could
now aim directly fore or aft.

The middle turret was now centered,

able to aim across both flanks.

Secondary armament was
beefed up with six inch guns

on each flank, plus smaller
weapons to guard against

the threat of fast boat torpedo attack.

Bigger, faster, and smarter,
the super dreadnoughts

were built to rule the
waves of the North Sea.

In the churning seas off Jutland,

Iron Duke led 16 other super dreadnoughts

to create Admiral Jellicoe's
formidable British battle line.

The German battle line led by Konig

was now unwittingly steaming
straight towards them.

Perfectly positioned, Jellicoe
gave the order to engage.

Iron Duke took aim at
Konig and unleashed a salvo

of nine 13.5 inch shells.

In the next few minutes,

Konig was hit by seven
of Iron Duke's shells,

other ships scored hits as well.

She received 10 heavy,
five to six lighter hits,

with 45 of her crew dead
and another 27 wounded,

but she still was afloat.

Iron Duke leads
the attack on the German line

twice more that evening.

Her gunner's hitting Konig
again and sinking a destroyer.

There's great loss on both sides.

Admiral Scheer comes to the conclusion

that this is not the
sort of battle he wanted.

He didn't want an epic showdown

and his only thought is to disengage

and get his fleet back to safety

because a number of his
ships are battered by now

and their combat effectiveness
has been reduced,

so he needs to get them home,

he needs to get them home intact.

So the German fleet mostly got home,

and got home before our fleet got home

because it happened close to Denmark.

And the German fleet claimed
to have been victorious.

One German newspaper
even quoted the Kaiser

as saying "The myth of
Trafalgar has been broken.

We've ended the blockade.

Germany has achieved its
objective on the seas.

We hold the trident now, not Britain."

It was a claim
that initially made sense.

Only two major German ships had been sunk

and their death toll was 2,551 men.

The British had come off far worse.

Over 6,000 souls had perished
and six major ships sunk.

As the Grand Fleet struggled home,

the trauma of it all sank in.

Bert Stevens was a stoker
on onboard HMS Chester.

When we come back,

come out of that scrap, we
were terribly bashed about.

When we got about 100 miles from Grimsby,

Captain Lawson says, "I'm
gonna stop the ship."

He said, "I'll have to take a chance.

We can't take these men
in, they're too bad,"

And he stopped the ship and we buried

the worst ones over the side, see?

Had 'em in canvas and we
put a damaged shell in,

over the side.

I forget how many we
buried, I couldn't say.

I know it was a terrible thing.

The Royal Navy had suffered,

but once the smoke cleared,

the claims of a German
victory rang hollow.

Jutland was what was known

as a fleet in being
victory for the British.

Strategically, the
battle changed nothing.

The British blockade was still in effect

and the German battle
fleet was in no shape

to go to sea for a number of weeks.

It was a defeat

Because finally it was proven
that the High Seas Fleet

could not end the war in favor of Germany.

There was one clear
winner of this great battle.

It was the dreadnoughts themselves.

The interesting thing
about Jutland is it shows

that the power of the defensive technology

that's been introduced
with the the dreadnought

and then the super dreadnought battleship.

The British lose three battle cruisers,

the Germans lose an elderly
pre-dreadnought battleship,

and a battle cruiser, not
one dreadnought battleship

is sunk at Jutland.

I think this proves the
quality of ship building,

of ship construction of these
Dreadnought-class vessels

on both sides.

They really were formidable ships.

Jackie Fisher's
vision of super warships

had demonstrated their awesome power,

but their influence on sea power

was perhaps not quite what he'd foreseen.

His dreadnoughts had been
able to destroy everything

in their gun sights except each other.

But Fisher would've been happy

that the outcome favored Britain.

In the aftermath of Jutland,

the German surface navy
was again confined to port.

A month after Jutland,

Admiral Scheer writes a
confidential report to the Kaiser

in which he had admits as such.

He says that "One of the lessons

we've learned from this battle

is that we cannot defeat
the Royal Navy at sea

in a Mahanian sense.

We cannot annihilate their battle fleet.

That's beyond our capability.

We have to think of something else."

From now on,
German submarines attacked

commerce shipping in the Atlantic,

a tactic that eventually
brought the U.S.A. into the war,

increased the allies' strength

and helped end the war itself.

But the peace was fragile

and there remained one
massively powerful weapon

that needed to be handled very carefully,

the German dreadnought fleet.

The British don't fear the
remains of the German Navy.

The biggest British fear
is that smaller nations

will make a play for those battleships

and increase their own
navies as a consequence.

And in particular, they're
worried about France and Italy,

both of whom have said that they want

some of these German dreadnoughts.

So pretty much the top
of the shopping list

for the British is to have the German Navy

handed over and interned.

The German fleet was disarmed.

The breaches of the guns
were left in Wilhelmshaven

together with the ammunition.

So they were absolutely defenseless.

They had only a minimum of coal,

only a skeleton crew on board

and then steamed over the North Sea

to Scapa Flow to be in interned.

Konig was the
final German battleship

to enter the Scottish naval base.

Here, this once mighty
fleet awaited its fate.

But a secret plan meant the Germans

would take back control
of their dreadnoughts.

In 1916, most of Britain's
fleet of super dreadnoughts

had fought Germany's in the defining

naval battle of the war.

They hadn't won,

but more importantly proved
they couldn't be beaten.

This played a key role in
Germany's eventual defeat.

Seven months after the war,

the victorious allies met in Versailles

to decide how to punish Germany

and what to do with her vanquished

but still awesomely powerful
fleet of dreadnoughts,

now anchored in Scapa Flow
under Royal Navy guard.

In the summer of 1919,

a rumor spreads through the German fleet

that the war is going to start again.

And they're sitting there
in the main British base

with no ammunition on their
ships and virtually no crews.

But the one thing that
they can choose to do

to make that gesture that
they're still part of the war

is to scuttle their own ships.

And that's exactly what they do.

On the 21st of June, 1919,

almost the entire British guard fleet

left Scapa Flow on exercises.

The German commander's secret
plan was put into action.

By a prearranged signal,
they opened their seacocks

and the whole fleet started to sink.

That was the way the Germans could salvage

an element of self-esteem
out of their predicament,

was to deny these ships to the Allies.

400,000 tons of finest
German steel going down.

The main Royal Navy guard fleet

rushed back to Scapa as the
ships slipped under the waters.

Claude Choules was on board HMS Revenge.

We were
rushing into Scapa Flow,

we could see the German
ships, some of them had sunk

and others were going over and sinking.

We could see ships going
all over the place.

And we said, "Well, thank Christ for that.

We've been up here nearly six months

waiting for our war service leave.

Now, we'll go home and
get our service leave.

The bastards are gone!"

The sinking
of one of the world's

most powerful dreadnought
fleets was and remains

the greatest loss of ships in one day.

100 years on from that midsummer's day,

moving commemorations
have been taking place

in Orkney to mark the event.

This has been one of the
most unusual memorial events,

marking what's thought to have been

the only occasion in
history in which a navy

destroyed its own fleet, and
in little over three hours.

When I was there on the
centenary of the scuttling

of the High Seas Fleet,

I felt grief, regret about the
waste of so many fine ships

and also so many fine men
in a war that certainly

was one of the most useless
wars in European history.

Not only had World War I

been a tragic waste of human life,

the dreadnought arms race

had also been cripplingly expensive

for all countries involved.

But that didn't stop the
rush to build more of them.

Dreadnought battleships
are still the currency

by which nations measure their
power and their prestige.

They are the nuclear weapons of their day.

They determine the most important nations.

Smaller nations are desperate

to build one or two dreadnoughts,

just to show that they can
have a seat at the top table.

The Washington
Naval Treaty of 1921 to 1922

between Britain, France, Italy, America,

and Japan, greatly reduced
the size and number

of battleships built in the coming years.

Many famous dreadnoughts
were also scrapped.

HMS Dreadnought, the ship
whose name had become

a by word for the ultimate battleship,

had been unceremoniously
scrapped a year later.

But Iron Duke survived, staying
in service another 20 years.

However, there was one dreadnought

whose story had only just begun.

I think Texas is the
world's greatest warship.

Not because she fought
in the most battles,

but because she symbolizes a lot

of what naval warfare is about.

Texas is here, she's still a
touchstone for that history.

And she's the only capital ship left

that was involved in two world wars.

That's significant.

Following the war,

Texas was modernized with
radio communication equipment,

radar, anti-aircraft defenses.

She even had her own sea planes.

When World War II broke out,

Texas was still fighting fit
and thrown into the fray.

She protected North Atlantic
convoys from U-boats,

supported North African landings,

before being called up to
help out on June 6th, 1944.

At D-Day, June 6th, she's
right off the coast of Normandy,

providing that gunfire support.

Later on, June 25th, the
Allies were taking Cherbourg,

the port town that they needed to,

and she was right off of the shore there,

providing gunfire support

and basically occupying those big

240 millimeter German guns.

So they were in a duel.

She was bracketed over
60 times and hit twice.

One of those shells came in
right above us and exploded.

It took out the bridge above us.

Injured a couple of gentlemen in here.

But you can see this armor's
up to 12 inches thick here.

And so she could take a round.

She's still able to be
effective, still greatly feared.

And so she was basically a decoy

and providing that
support and a distraction

while the army was moving
in and taking over the port.

With the north
coast of France secure,

Texas was sent to the
Pacific where she supported

the American troops in the
bitter fighting on Iwo Jima

and Okinawa in the dying
days of World War II.

Even then, Texas' war wasn't over.

At Los Angeles anxious crowds

await a fleet contingent of their own,

the battleships, Texas and Nevada,

both veterans of two
wars and five invasions.

Perhaps the highest note of her career,

she did what the U.S. referred
to as "magic carpet rides."

She brought home over 4,200
soldiers, sailors, and marines.

So she went out in a high style.

And for the
loved ones who had waited,

nothing can compare with this moment.

USS Texas had survived.

But the great battle
fleets of dreadnoughts

would never be seen again.

Next time, the aircraft carrier.

That audacious hybrid
of flying and sailing

that changed how war at sea was waged.

These giants have become the most fierce

and conventional weapons ever built.

And the truest measure of
a nation's naval strength.